Call of Duty makers Infinity Ward posted two telling photos to Facebook and Twitter this week, showing off what appears to be an Xi3 Piston PC, one of Valve's adorable prototype Steam Box devices, with the company's logo plastered on it. (UPDATE: Or any of the other Xi3 mini-computers—the Steam Box is just one possible variation.)

Project Piston isn't the only one: Valve is showing off a number of hardware prototypes behind …
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It's also got another device (maybe a hard drive?) attached on the bottom. The photo on Twitter came with the message "What's this?" while the one on Facebook said simply "Game development."

Talk about cryptic.

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This could mean a lot of things. Maybe Infinity Ward has partnered with Xi3 or even Valve to launch the next Call of Duty game when Steam Boxes start rolling out. Or maybe something much less predictable is going on.

Either way, I think that tiny Piston is kind of cute. I could see it (or something similar) sitting beneath my TV.

The original headline of this story was "Cryptic Infinity Ward Messages Show Off Branded Steam Box Prototype." That was a mistake. The PC pictured here could be a Steam Box, but it could just as easily be any of the other PCs that Xi3 is making using the same shell. We apologize for the error.